Hunting Season for Healthcare Workers

Hiring hospital workers is getting tougher as physicians, nurses, and other clinical staff become more aware of their market value. In the meantime, potential sources of talent remain frustratingly out of reach.

As the economy slowly rebounds, healthcare workers are growing increasingly confident about their job prospects. With full implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on the 2014 horizon, human resource departments are taking a closer look at their recruiting strategies.

Hiring managers have their work cut out for them. Demand for healthcare workers is up and workers, knowing their market value is appreciating, are showing signs of willingness to engage with employers offering potentially more lucrative terms.

After a slight decline in Q1, 30% of healthcare workers in Q2 intend to search for new jobs this year, a six percent increase over the previous quarter, according to Randstad's quarterly healthcare employment trends report.

Despite financial strains on the industry, it's not a fear of a sinking ship that's sending employees out the door. Sixty-one percent remain confident in the stability of their current employer, while their confidence that they could find another job holds steady at 54%. A sluggish month of hospital job growth notwithstanding, workers see demand for their skills growing.

An alternative talent pool
The short supply of American physicians will only become more strained as healthcare reform is fully implemented and the insured patient population continues to expand.

Economists point to untapped international resources for physicians, many who currently live in the United States, but cannot practice because of the highly regulated system. Advocates argue that the federal government should make greater efforts to recognize the high-quality international training, and make it easier for foreign doctors, whose training is just as good as in the United States, to establish their practices here.

"It is doubtful that the U.S. can respond to the massive shortages without the participation of international medical graduates. But we're basically ignoring them in this discussion and I don't know why that is," Nyapati Raghu Rao, the Indian-born chairman of psychiatry at Nassau University Medical Center and a past chairman of the American Medical Association's international medical graduates governing council told The New York Times.

Another source of talent, barely tapped
Closer to home, APRNs, physician assistants, and other mid-level providers can enable hospitals to meet growing patient demand, but only in states where the law allows them to practice the full extent of their knowledge, training, and licensure.

In California last week a bill to expand the scope and practice of nurse practitioners in the state reached the state assembly and passed. Senate Bill 491 will allow nurse practitioners to practice independently of physicians in hospitals, clinics and skilled-nursing facilities. Unfortunately, the bill was a watered down version of its original form.

The California Medical Association exerted its influence and succeeded in weakening the bill, which originally called for nurse practitioners to operate independently after 6,240 hours of physician supervision. Next stop: the Senate Appropriations Committee.